


things we lost in the fire

by Cinnamonbookworm



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Major Character Deaths, F/M, Parallels, Post Winter Finale, Underworld, for both shows, in which killian and felicity meet after death because i decided to kill myself with angst, in-canon (for now), olicitysecretsanta2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:44:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There is a room somewhere someplace between being alive and not being alive.<br/>And here is where the story starts. Two different souls find themselves here. And then they find each other, because of course they do - there would not be a story if they did not. And they make each other feel a little less lonely.</i>
</p>
<p>written for alizziebyanyothername on tumblr for the olicity secret santa</p>
            </blockquote>





	things we lost in the fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alizziebyanyothername](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=alizziebyanyothername).



> so um... wow. i knew i had to do this as soon as i saw the finales and the fact that i could do it as a gift makes it even better. thank you so much for being on board this wacky crossover spiral with me, and for being ready to encounter the angst that is about to happen.

There is a room somewhere someplace between being alive and not being alive.

Like a waiting room. People are dying quite rapidly nowadays and it’s taking a bit longer than usual for everyone to go where they’re supposed to go.

It looks different to everyone, just as death does. Everyone has a different mindset. To some it’s a place they call home. Or somewhere they spent a lot of time.To others it looks like what they expect a waiting room after death to look like.

And here is where the story starts. Two different souls find themselves here. And then they find each other, because of course they do - there would not be a story if they did not. And they make each other feel a little less lonely.

 

***

 

Felicity can’t breathe. That much she knows.

Or she’s not breathing. She can’t quite tell. All she knows is that her chest is still, no rising or falling, just kind of… being there.

And it’s dark. It’s really dark. And then suddenly it’s not.

The MIT library looks the same as it always has. Same large shelves, same fogged windows, same passed out guy in the corner. It looks as if it was hand picked straight from her memories - which, Felicity supposes, it probably was. She doesn’t really believe in Purgatory; that’s more of a Catholic thing, but she has a feeling this isn’t really it.

Felicity can still sort of sense that she’s alive. There’s that faint reminiscence of warmth where she remembers Oliver’s hand gripping hers, and the coldness where the ring would be. It’s not there, though, not here. She’s back to her natural state, she guesses, judging by the length and color of her hair. The only continuous tether she can feel to where from whence she came is the slight sting on her side and the stain of red peeking out through her jacket.

Felicity feels like she’s a Freshman again; too-young and too-alone and too-scared but not willing to admit it. Post-Dad Pre-Cooper. Makes sense this would be her core self - the one who has nobody and trusts nobody and really really isn’t happy. Makes sense that when she’s finally at her best place, when she’s happy with friend and family and Oliver ( _oh god, Oliver_ ) that she’d be reduced back to the place where she has none. A reminder that people aren’t permanent, that her basic state is loneliness.

And then she feels a tap on her shoulder and she’s suddenly not quite so alone.

Someone stands behind her, a guy dressed in all black (or so she thinks - she’s not sure; details are fleeting here). She doesn’t remember him from any of her MIT classes, but maybe he’s her mind’s warped stand-in for Cooper.

Maybe he’s here to bring her back to Oliver and the hospital room and just being _alive._

There’s not a lot about him she can decipher, but there’s one very obvious thing: he’s got really blue eyes. And Cooper didn’t have eyes like that.

 

***

The Underworld’s a lot like his father’s stories told him it would be.

It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s full of too many people. He shuffles around through faceless crowds, not stopping until he reaches a point where the mob of souls becomes a bit more bearable. They all smell slightly like sewage. Or possibly that is just what death smells like.

Really, the comparison should be made between the Underworld and New York City; they’re not that different.

The only difference being, of course, he found Emma in New York both times he was there and this time… well, he’d be distraught to find her here.

But maybe it’s the thoughts of Emma herself that make his eye catch on a different soul in the crowd. He’s subconsciously looking for some sort of kindred spirit and then… there she is.

She’s small - hair short as well, falling to her shoulders like a bronze frame around the portrait of her face - she’s also sitting where all the souls around them are standing. Her soul still looks fairly vibrant. He guesses that means she’s almost but not quite dead yet. She seem as good a soul as any to talk to while he waits.

She reminds him of Emma a bit too - nothing much, just in the same way she reminds him of himself - she’s got half the look of an orphan in her eyes. Of all the people around them, consumed with loss but not quite lonely. Yet, packed in a crowd of souls, they both share the absolute sense of feeling alone. He taps her on the shoulder.

“Hello, love. The name is Killian Jones. You must be dead as well.”

She looks up, suddenly. Her eyes are the same blue/green as the sea he’d sailed on as a child. Her hair brushes his fingertips as she turns to face him and she looks more lost than many a soul he’s seen. She’s confused, he gathers that much, and it may because she’s still in limbo.

When she says “I’m dead?” with such a pain in her voice that it nearly overwhelms in, Killian thinks his heart would be breaking if he had a corporeal one left to break.

 

***

Felicity doesn’t want to be dead. She doesn’t want to be gone. She doesn’t want to have left. She wasn’t supposed to leave.

She’s only twenty five - well, she _was_ twenty five; she supposes now she’s not really much of anything. She was supposed to do so much more with her life.

She was supposed to work at PT with Ray; she was supposed to see the new Star Wars; she was supposed to… She was supposed to get married.

Felicity looks down at her hand. The ring isn't there anymore. Figures.

Everything she could’ve had with Oliver, everything she _did have_ , gone in a split second. She was supposed to get _more than this_.

Killian Jones suddenly looks like he regrets the way he’d introduced himself to her. “My apologies, lass” he says, and Felicity can’t help but wonder why she’s found a Captain Jack Sparrow on her way to being dead. “It’s just- No one here is alive.”

She’s still bleeding, though. How can she be bleeding if she’s dead? “I’m not dead yet, though, am I?”

He tilts his head to the side a bit, examining the blood leaking from her side. “I suppose not. That’s quite the gunshot wound, though.”

“It is, isn’t it?” she sighs, thinking of all the things it’s just taken from her. Then she extends a hand to the man in front of her. “Felicity Smoak. I guess you’re dead as well.”

They shake, and she watches as he clenches his left hand into a fist and then out of it.

“Dead pirate captain, at your service.”

So maybe she wasn't too far off on that _Captain Jack Sparrow_ assumption. “CEO-” she begins before realizing she's not one anymore, not really. That might hurt more than the gunshot wound. “I _was_ a CEO. I'm not anymore, obviously.”

One of his eyebrows has risen up when she looks back at him. She can't tell if that's a good thing or not.

“We're you any good.”

“I was, I think: I loved it, I-”

Her voice breaks thinking about all that she's left behind. Felicity wishes the thoughts of her life didn't hurt as much as they do.

“Dwelling on living won't do you any good down here.”

“How did you die?” she asks him, suddenly wanting to focus on anyone but herself.

He seems slightly taken aback by her bluntness but answers anyway, “It’s a long story, love.”

Felicity lets a bitter smile creep across her face as she shrugs her shoulders and sighs, “I have time.”

“You ever heard of the Dark One?”

Felicity has to admit that she has not, unless “Dark One” is some secret code for Damien Darhk… or perhaps Vandal Savage now that she thinks about it. Maybe Killian’s from some far past in which Savage or Darhk had more power… or maybe he’s from the future where she’s dead and gone; maybe his death is a direct consequence of her own.

“Well, he’s…” Killians splutters, trying to find the right words”-it’s a creature, made of pure evil and it must always possess a person. For as long as I have been alive, there has been a Dark One.”

“You say that like you’ve lived for a while.”

“Aye, many centuries.”

“So what happened with this Dark One?”

“A few months ago… it got out, somehow released by its former master and my love, Emma, she jumped in front of it to save a friend of ours, taking the darkness inside herself.”

“She sounds like a hero.”

Killian’s blue eyes get a little far away and Felicity wishes she could go with him in his thoughts. Like he said, fantasizing about aliveness will do nothing to help you down here. “She is.”

Felicity purses her lips for a moment, “Did she- is she the one who-?”

“Killed me? No. Well, not exactly. I was hurt with this blade - Excalibur; you might’ve heard of it, and the only way she could save me was by tethering me to the darkness herself.”

_Yep,_ Felicity decides, _definitely from the past._ Still, his very modern leather jacket slightly suggests otherwise.

“How are you dead then?”

“The darkness, it- well, I’m not a hero, not like Emma. I couldn’t fight it. I made her run me through with our tether to destroy the darkness and save her family.”

Killian says he’s not a hero, but it sounds an awful lot like something a hero would do to Felicity. She tells him this. His bitter laugh rivals only her own.

“I’m not a hero, love,” he reminds her.

“Pirate, remember?”

“More of a hero than I am, at least,” she mumbles in return. “Your death saved everyone - mine’s just a casualty in a war.”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“I might as well be. Who knows how long I’ve been here… waiting.”

Someone stumbles behind her, catching themselves last minute, but one of their books goes flying, knocking over the container of pens in front of them.

A feather pen. A red pen. And one more; a pen she vaguely remembers sitting on the desk at the hospital. The blue click one that’s always there. She reaches for it. Her hand goes through it.

“I’m guessing one of these is yours,” she tells Killian.

He looks like he wishes she hadn’t said that. Killian grimaces. “I guess that means the red one’s yours then.”

“I guess so.”

“You know, sometimes objects wash up here with special significance. Little things you need to shed to truly die.”

Felicity can't stomach the thought of letting go of who this pen represents.

 

***

 

She looks sadder at his statement. If that's even possible. “There's someone back home, then.” Killian observes.

“There is; he’s _wonderful,_ he's… never going to see me again, is he?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Right. He has to die eventually too. How could I forget?”

“What I meant is that your spirit is still fighting. You might see a return to the realm of the living yet.”

He wishes he had the same opportunity. What he would give to be stronger - to go back, to see _her_ again.

“What's her name?” Felicity asks, surprising him at her intuitiveness. When he quirks an eyebrow at her in response she just smiles a bit knowingly. “I'm not the only one with someone back home.”

“Emma. Yours?”

“Oliver. Oliver Queen.”

“Ah so he's royalty then.”

“Kind of… I guess, he used to be.”

“But you're of higher title now?”

“Something like that… How could you tell?”

“You have all the signs of well breeding. Not necessarily _royal_ breeding, mind you-” Killian goes on to explain the system of classifying good people he’d picked up when he was still serving in the Navy and all he'd cared about was _honor_. “He most likely doesn't deserve you.”

Felicity lets out a slightly bitter laugh. “I sometimes feel like I’m undeserving of _him_ , though,” she says, eyes downcast at the dirt floor they sit on, “like I’m just waiting for the day he wakes up and realizes he could have _anyone_ and that _anyone_ is surely better than me.”

Killian’s heart pangs; he knows that feeling all too well, remembers the mornings after Ingrid when he’d sit there and wonder if maybe this would be the day Emma would finally have enough of him. She never came to the conclusion that she deserved better than him, though, not even in his final moments. And, he supposes, it’s a wonderfully tragic sort of parting gift.

Emma’s faith in him rivals only that of Belle’s faith in the crocodile, and for a while there he would’ve corrected that statement with the annotation that Emma’s love for him was not quite as blind, but, looking back at what he did in his last week alive, he’s not so sure of that anymore.

He grimaces an attempt at a condolenced smile at Felicity. “I am all too familiar with that feeling, love. I suppose it’s befitting we both died before either of them realized it, though.”

That’s another thing he has in common with this not-quite-dead-girl; they’re both excruciatingly, ironically, tragically bitter. Her own laugh and his mingle in the quiet hum of spirits shuffling around them and they taste like ground coffee. She’s another parting gift from the Underworld, he supposes; a sign that maybe if he could find his way to someone who’s such good company after death, then his prospects with the judges of the dead are not qutie as hopeless as he’d thought at first.

“Tell me more about this Oliver Queen of yours,” Killian prods her, gently, wanting to distract himself from the thought of his upcoming judgement. “How did you meet?”

Felicity twirls around the red pen that had washed up on the shores of the Lethe in front of them earlier, “I caught him in a lie.”

His mind immediately flashes to his first encounter with Emma; the pile of corpses and his cover as a blacksmith and the way she’d been able to tell immediately that he was lying through his teeth. Killian wonders if Felicity had held up a blade to this _Oliver_ ’s neck for his falsehood as well. She seems like the type to.

He voices this and her laugh is the brightest thing about this place - not quite as bright as the first time Emma had smiled at him, but a makeshift bandage for the wound in his heart nonetheless.

“Nah,” she assures him. “I played along. But I think we both knew I never really believed his story.”

“And the pen?” he asks, watching as her fingers absentmindedly dance the thing through the air.

Felicity blushes, “I was chewing on it when we met. Three years later and he remembered the color… how incredibly insane as that?”

Killian thinks about the slight flashes of gold hair that would disturb him in his dreams for almost half a century before their first meeting. He smiles, for real this time. “Not as insane as one might think. He has an eye for detail then?”

“Only with the little things… Didn’t even notice I was wearing green once for a whole half of a day. It was incredibly frustrating.”

“I didn’t get a word of that, love.”

Felicity waves her pen-absent hand about, as if to bat away his confusion. “Nevermind… it’s a long story. What about Emma? Can you tell me how you met her?”

“Depends on which time you’d like to know about.”

“Which _time?_ ”

“It’s quite a long story, love. I don’t know if you’ll be able to handle it”

Felicity shrugs her shoulders, “Well we’ve got all the time in the world, right?”

And so, he spins his tale of the meeting at the beanstalk, not in the mood to opt for the more romantic versions of their story; she's a kindred spirit, she understands the beauty of the original version. She understands the fear of being left behind.

Their parallels do not go unnoticed.

She makes a sad murmur of sympathy when he gets to the part where Emma left him behind. It’s a wound that doesn’t sting him anymore - how could it, after all they’ve been through together? - but he suspects the half a look of an orphan in her eyes makes her know this pain better than most.

“You’re a lost girl, aren’t you?” he asks her, although he already knows the answer.

“I mean, not really. I know my way around the MIT Campus pretty well.”

She says a lot of things he doesn’t understand. Her references to this _MIT_ are one of them, still he corrects himself. “Sorry, love, I just meant… you’ve been left behind before?”

“My dad,” she tells him. “He um… he left when i was young and he promised he’d be back but he never came back. I don’t talk about it a lot but…”

“Aye, I know that pain. My father abandoned me as well.”

“Does that make you a lost boy?” she asks and he knows she’s trying for a joke amidst their mutual suffering.

“Indeed it does.”

 

***

 

Killian’s talk of lost boys and lost girls has her thinking of Oliver, and so she starts repaying the favor; telling him about the love she’s just lost. The one whose presence she craves even now. She doesn’t know why Killian’s been playing with his left hand so much, but she knows she’s playing with hers because the last thing she remembers is Oliver gripping it in the limo like a lifeline.

She hopes it is a lifeline.

Maybe she could find her way back to him that way.

“He’s a little broken; been through a lot. He’s still a hero, though. No matter how he first seems.”

“You may want to get him off that path, love.” Killian gestures to himself. “Heroes just end up like me.”

“You’re not dead yet.” Felicity reminds him.

Killian grimaces. “Only because my life is too long to be quickly weighed. You have a way out. I do not.”

She’s silent for a moment ,contemplating that, wondering just how long Killian will wait with her until he has to leave. How strange a thing that she’s nearly dead and yet people are still getting ready to leave her.

The radio starts playing Christmas carols again. Her dead partner doesn’t seem to notice. Maybe he can’t even hear it. Maybe she’s the only one. The idea makes her feel pretty alone.

And then the pen in front of her- the blue one from the hospital - starts shaking.

“That's your key out of here, love.” Killian tells her, wistful smile directed more at the ground below her feet than her herself.

“You could come with me,” she says. “You're a hero; you'd fit in pretty well where I'm going.”

“I'm afraid that's not how it works.”

“Well,” Felicity sighs, looking for _anything_ to leave her new friend with. “It was nice talking to you, Killian.”

“Aye,” he responds, “always nice to meet a lost girl.”

“Back at you, lost boy. I hope you find your way home.”

A ring that isn't hers rolls to her feet and she tosses it at him. “I’m guessing this is yours.”

He looks at it like it’s his sun and stars. Maybe she's leaving him with some semblance of hope after all.

“Bye, Killian.”

“Bon voyage, Felicity.”

She takes the pen in hand and begins to find her way back to breathing.


End file.
